


All My Underdogs

by Khashana



Series: Advertise what makes you crazy (The Olympic Figure Skating AU) [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Accidental Deadnaming, Accidental Outing, Blowjobs, Coming Out, Established Jack/Kent, Friends to Lovers, Hockey, Intercrural Sex, Kent makes all his decisions with his dick but somehow they work out for him, M/M, Polyamory, Semi-Public Sex, Threesomes, Trans Male Character, Vaginal Sex, Voyeurism, figure skating, just good communication and our boys being disgustingly in love, most of freshman year SMH makes an appearance but don't warrant the character tag, no pimms drama here, this is DEFINITELY a story about allosexuals Will, transgender character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:01:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24296272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khashana/pseuds/Khashana
Summary: Kent being at Samwell makes Bitty’s freshman year so much better.Bitty, on the other hand, makes Kent’s senior year so much more confusing.
Relationships: Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Kent "Parse" Parson/Jack Zimmermann
Series: Advertise what makes you crazy (The Olympic Figure Skating AU) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1754023
Comments: 20
Kudos: 85
Collections: The Parse Posi Posse's Place phor Phics





	1. Pair Skating

**Author's Note:**

> Re: accidental outing: this is in general a squicky, weird, highly suspect thing for trans characters and I don’t in general recommend it. I can say that it actually does make sense in the particular context of this fic, and that it has nothing to do with catching Kent naked and everything to do with him being a little too famous in the skating circuit pre-transition. 
> 
> Shoutout to MaraMcGregor for figure skating subject matter expertise and to Tim and Cat for beta! Also you can thank halfdesertedstreets for the Pimms content being this sappy because I live to make her send me DMs full of screaming and emojis.
> 
> This is actually not part of the reverse bang, so the art this time around is mine (which is why it isn't as carefully color-themed as palateens's.) Sources here.

_I live for the applause, applause, applause_  
_I live for the applause-plause, live for the applause-plause_  
_Live for the way that you cheer and scream for me_  
_The applause, applause, applause_  
_Give me that thing that I love (I'll turn the lights out)_  
_Put your hands up, make 'em touch, touch (Make it real loud)_

~Applause, Lady Gaga

Kent arrived at the arena, anticipation fluttering in his chest. He was a little early for the end of practice, but summer was too fucking long to be spending away from Jack, and it hadn’t been any easier this year than last. They’d already met up, of course, when Kent first got back, and fallen immediately into bed. Frenzied hands and mouths got them both off within five minutes, taking the edge off, and then they’d spent hours making slow, sweet love. Kent’s favorite thing about being trans had to be the multiple orgasms. Jack had dragged two out of him before he himself was ready to go again.

But he still hadn’t quite kicked the feeling of _missing_ Jack all the same. He sat down and started to lace up his skates, watching through the plexiglass as practice finished. He picked out the new kids one by one, judging their form with a critical eye, and pausing in between to gaze at Jack in his element. He was becoming a really good captain, Kent thought. It had taken some effort to get him to stop letting his natural intensity ramp up to eleven and make everyone miserable, but between Kent and Shitty, Jack had survived his first year as captain without leaving too many scars. Kent still thought sophomore year was too early to make Jack the captain, or ‘give him the C’ as Jack would always put it, if only because it had ostracized him from his peers. But the bitchiest teammates had been seniors, and they were all gone now. Most of the remaining team respected Jack’s ability on the ice, both his finesse and his plays.

Kent got his first skate laced up and started on the other one.

The new d-pair was working decently together, even though Kent was sure they’d never met before. They were finding their footing. One of the new wingers was a powerhouse, but kept getting in his teammates’ way. Kent hoped he was better at that once he’d had some more practices under his belt. He probably would be; how else would he have gotten onto the team? The second winger was unremarkable, but the third? Jesus, he was fast, and _spinny._ And also a full head shorter than literally anyone else on the ice.

“Bittle!” called Jack, audible even at a distance. “Heads up!”

The tiny winger flinched. And dropped to the ice.

_The fuck?_

Kent stood up, trying to get a better look. Play ground to a halt all around the winger, who was curled up in a ball. The coaches skated over to talk to him, and Jack just buried his face in one glove.

Kent watched the kid get helped off the ice, which apparently ended practice, and put it out of his mind in favor of stepping onto the ice and gliding lazily over to Jack, whose face softened when he spotted Kent.

“Hey, Kenny,” he said warmly, opening his arms. Kent skated into them and Jack cuddled him close. When Kent pulled away, Jack dropped a quick peck onto his lips. Kent grinned uncontrollably.

“Just going with it this year, huh?”

“What’s the point of hiding?” Jack pointed out. “The new kids will learn what’s up, and the rest of the team has my back. They’ll fall in line. They don’t have any other choice.”

Still. Kent remembers exactly how long it took Jack to be comfortable kissing him in front of the team frosh year, and sophomore year, for that matter.

“Proud of you,” he said quietly. Then, because that was more than sappy enough, “Last one to loop the rink is a rotten egg!”

“Kenny!” Jack’s voice carried behind him as Kent zipped off.

He caught sight of Shitty, who had the remaining frosh gathered into a huddle. As Kent passed them, he caught “—Jack’s boyfriend—” and grinned again to realize that Shitty had it under control.

“Bittle drops _at least_ once a practice,” complained Jack. “I don’t know why he’s even here.” Kent arched a brow at him and twirled his pencil in his fingers.

“…Other than to play hockey?”

“He can’t take a check! What’s the point of playing with teammates who don’t take the game seriously?”

“Okay, how did you get from A to B, there, seriously, talk me through that thought process.”

Jack gaped a little and gestured wordlessly.

“No, I mean it, what about being afraid of getting whacked into by guys a hundred pounds heavier equates to not taking the game seriously?”

“We’re not a _hundred_ pounds heavier,” grumbled Jack.

“Missing the point. Zimms, I don’t wanna get checked into the boards by you either, and I’m bigger than he is. But he’s still here, isn’t he? Even though it’s clearly hell on wheels—or skates, haha—for him to even play your stupid sport?”

Jack sighed and all the fight drained out of his posture. “So what do I do about it? He’s dragging the team down.”

“You fucking _captain him,_ you moron.”

He sort of regretted giving that advice, because there were now even _less_ hours in the day he could get Jack to think about something other than hockey. If it wasn’t plays or team cohesion, now it was “checking practice.” And it was still only preseason.

Kent dropped by the Haus a week or two later, slightly before the start of the season. Not that he wasn’t at the Haus all the time anyway—his boyfriend did live there, after all—but on this particular occasion, the timing turned out to be significant.

Jack was in the front room, talking to Ransom and Holster, so Kent made to stay out of the way, but Jack roped him in with one arm. Kent buried his grin in Jack’s arm.

“You two are so fucking cute,” said Ransom. “Like seriously. #goals.”

“Have you not met Kent yet?” said Shitty from across the room. He’d been talking to someone whose face Kent didn’t recognize, but totally had to be the tiny winger prone to collapse on the ice—what was his name? The kid turned beet red, like he’d been trying to unobtrusively ask who Kent was. “That’s Jack’s boyfriend.”

The kid about choked on his tongue. “Wh-what?” His voice was pitched with shock. Shitty frowned.

“Do I need to rethink my opinion of you not being a bigoted dickfaced cockhole?”

“Yeah, is that a problem?” said Holster, placing himself between Jack-and-Kent and the kid.

“No!” That sounded like fear, actually. Kent ducked out of Jack’s embrace so he could see around Holster. And, geez, the kid’s face—Kent would bet his bronze medal that it wasn’t homophobia making the kid squeak like that, but something much more like his world turning upside down.

“Chill out, you guys. Jesus, you’re all so straight. Give the kid a break.” He crossed the room and held out a hand to the kid, who tentatively shook it. “Kent Parson.”

“Um. Eric Bittle. The b-boys call me, um, Bitty.” The kid had a southern twang, and Kent felt more of the puzzle slot into place.

“Bitty. Nice to meet you.” He tried to think of a way to say “want to go somewhere else and discuss how you’re almost certainly gay and couldn’t talk about it in Alabama or wherever you’re from.” He had to settle for “Don’t mind them, they’re just overprotective.” He raised his voice to project to the room. “Bitty’s cool, aren’t you, Bitty? He was just surprised.” He was careful to keep his voice calm, nonthreatening, nothing accusatory or warning in his tone. Bitty nodded frantically. Kent clapped him on the shoulder. “Cool. Now can we all go back to what we were doing, or do you lot want to start defending your captain from squirrels next?”

“Sorry, man,” said Shitty, clapping Bitty on the other shoulder and fist bumping Kent. “Got carried away.”

Bitty caught up to him outside of Taylor after class the next day, falling into step beside him.

“Hi!” he said. “Kent, right?”

“Yup. And you’re Bitty.”

“That’s me!” Now that he wasn’t being called out in front of the team, Bitty was perky, extroverted and friendly. “Listen, I was wondering, I had a question. Or, not a question, really, more of a general sort of curiosity, you know, not that you have to answer anything, of course, I don’t want to be nosy, and he is my captain, but I can’t exactly ask _him,_ he’s so intense, is he always this intense? I don’t know how I’ll make it through this season if he is--”

“Bitty,” Kent interrupted, stifling a smile. “You had a question. About Jack?”

“Well, sort of. About—about--”

“Me and Jack?”

Bitty’s cheeks pinked, and he stuffed his hands in his pockets and nodded.

“He’s really—gay?” he asked in a small voice.

“Bisexual,” said Kent. “I’m gay, though. And yeah, we’re really dating. We’ve been together since 2010, more or less. It’s common knowledge on campus, but don’t go mentioning it to Deadspin or anything.”

“Wow,” Bitty said, voice almost a whisper.

They were quiet for perhaps another thirty seconds, which Kent was starting to get the impression was a long time for Bitty.

“I, um. I am too,” said Bitty at last. “Um. Gay. I’m gay.” He stopped walking and let out his breath in a whoosh. “Wow. I’ve never said that before. Ever.”

Kent felt something warm curl up in his chest. He was this kid’s first coming out.

“Hey,” he said, quietly, trying to match Bitty’s energy. “Congrats. That’s really big.” Bitty looked up at him, something inexpressibly huge in his eyes. Kent held out his arms, and Bitty took the hug.

Eventually Bitty let go, and they started walking again.

“So how’d you get into hockey?” Kent asked, more to continue the conversation than anything else.

“Oh, I used to be a figure skater,” said Bitty, and there was probably more to that story, but now he had Kent’s real attention.

“No shit? I’m a figure skater.” Bitty positively _lit up._ And they were off, talking jumps and competitions and music, how long they’d been out of the competitive circuit (roughly the same amount of time, funny enough, but Bitty had gone into hockey when Kent ran away from home) and Kent somehow by the skin of his teeth managing not to say anything too specific about precisely how high a level he’d been at, and the next thing he knew, Bitty was telling him that he had a routine to _Single Ladies_ , and Kent was confessing that he had one to _Toxic_ , and they were agreeing to go down to the arena and show each other _right now._

“Oh, but it won’t be open,” said Bitty, frowning adorably.

“Zimms’s been bribing the equipment manager for years,” said Kent dismissively. “He finally gave him his own keys. As long as we drive the Zamboni when we’re done, he’ll turn a blind eye. I’ll drop by my dorm and grab my skates and then get the key from Jack’s room, and you go get your figure skates and I’ll meet you there?”

“How do you know I even have my figure skates?” said Bitty. Kent stared at him.

“Of _course_ you have your figure skates.”

Bitty laughed. “Fair enough, I guess. See you in a few!”

Bitty was pretty good, Kent was more than willing to admit. His _Single Ladies_ routine was highly entertaining, with some excellent hip action and the iconic hand motion, and if Kent didn’t miss his mark, a surprising amount of the actual dance translated into skating. Kent clapped when he finished, and switched out the music. Bitty snapped on his skate guards to climb up to the sound booth and waited until Kent was ready before hitting go.

Now, it may have been a fair few years since Kent skated competitively, and maybe he didn’t spend twenty to thirty hours a week on the ice anymore, but he had by no means actually stopped practicing, and this was one of his favorite routines. It was all footwork to start, with a nice high kick in there, transitioning to a triple toe. Then another step sequence, and a triple Salchow that he pulled off quite well if he did say so himself. Then some hella fun spins, more footwork, more high kicks, and a double loop.

He came to a stop as the music ended, sweating and grinning uncontrollably. It was undeniably less sweaty, and probably sexier, to do it in the skimpy leotards he used to wear, but he knew it was still impressive in the sweats and t-shirt he’d thrown on when he grabbed his skates.

Bitty came down to lean over the boards and gape at him.

“You’re better than me,” he said. Kent laughed, high off the thrill.

“Well, I fucking hope so,” he said. “I didn’t see _you_ at the Vancouver Olympics.”

He realized his mistake a second after he said it.

“But…” said Bitty, and Kent could _see_ him running through the American skaters in his head, and the lightbulb when it occurred to him to call to mind the _female_ figure skaters. “You’re not _McKenzie_ Parson?”

Kent clapped his hands over his ears too late to miss hearing his deadname. “Yes, fuck, don’t call me that,” he snapped, and left the ice, rushing through untying his skates and wiping down the blades as fast as he could.

Bitty just gaped at him for long minutes, giving Kent enough time to remember to snap, “Don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t!” said Bitty. Then, tentatively, “…Except Jack? I mean, Jack knows, right? He must…”

“Yeah, Jack knows, but why the fuck would you need to—never mind,” said Kent, finally finishing with his skates. Jack can tell Bitty off if he needs to.

Jack didn’t say anything when Kent turned up in his room, but he pulled Kent into his arms and cradled him like something precious, and Kent knew Bitty had talked to him.

Jack hadn’t told Bitty off, apparently, because Bitty turned up two days later in the dining hall—with a pie in his hands? What the fuck?—and said tentatively, “Kent? Can I talk to you for a second?” Kent nodded reluctantly. Bitty looked around them, but there was no one in earshot if they lowered their voices, and he sat down across from Kent. “I just wanted to say, I’m sorry I found out when you didn’t want to tell me, and I won’t tell anyone or ask you about it if you don’t want, but I’d still really like to be friends. I can’t exactly talk to the boys—the team, I mean—about figure skating.” He pushed the pie across the table.

Kent nodded again, cautiously this time. “Did Jack tell you to say that?” he asked curiously. Bitty flushed, but held his head high.

“I didn’t want to stick my foot in my mouth, is all. It’s still true.”

Which. Fair enough.

“Okay,” said Kent, and grinned suddenly. It had been a long time since he’d been able to really brag. “So, you wanna hear about the Olympics?”

“Oh my god, _yes,_ ” said Bitty, eyes huge. “ _And_ the Grand Prix. And…”

So, that was better than Kent had anticipated.

And the pie was fucking amazing.

“Thanks for talking to Bitty,” said Kent, collapsing on Jack’s bed that evening.

“Did I manage to head off the weird questions?” asked Jack, mouth quirked up in a grin.

“Yeah. Nothing about transition or anything. Not even any questions about Mom. He was just fangirling over _me._ ”

“Good.” Jack bent over to kiss him. “More people should fangirl over you.”

Family weekend was always a source of stress for Kent and Jack, and this year was no different.

“So, my mom is coming up on Friday,” said Kent, bracing himself. Jack’s shoulders stiffened, but he didn’t say anything. “Are your parents coming?”

“Papa is.”

“Friday or Saturday?”

“Saturday.”

Kent sighed. It would do.

Gina Parson would likely never be completely comfortable with having a son, but she knew better than to say anything, and the hug she gave Kent was as warm as her hugs ever got.

“Do you want to skate before dinner?” he asked after the pleasantries. She gave him a secretive little smile.

“I’d love to.”

They’d started this in sophomore year, when they’d both finally moved past the raw wound of Kent giving up competition of his own volition. Kent and his mother hadn’t skated together since he was a little kid; all his ice time was spent working with coaches or practicing, getting better, better, _better_. But last year, somehow they’d ended up here, at Faber, re-learning how to have fun on the ice together.

Kent put on his favorite movement of Carmen and they took the ice, improvising ice dancing, falling into bits and pieces of Kent’s routines and Gina’s, and finishing off with an honest-to-god race around the rink. They were both laughing when they climbed off the ice, red-cheeked and gleeful, but the smile dropped off his face when he spotted Jack, face stormy, sitting on a bench.

“Jack,” said Kent hesitantly. “What are you doing?”

“It’s Faber,” said Jack, as though that explained everything, and maybe it did. “Hi, Mrs. Parson.” He stood up and stalked off without another word.

“Should you go after him?” his mother asked, working one skate off. Kent sighed and shook his head.

“Not like this. We’d just end up yelling at each other.”

“If you say so.”

“Ready for dinner?”

“Absolutely.”

After his mother had gone back to her hotel for the night, Kent texted Jack.

_You still sulking?_

A moment, and then a response.

_I know you want to rebuild your relationship with her_

_Are rebuilding_

_Have rebuilt_

_Whatever I don’t know_

_And I’m trying not to fuck that up for you but I can’t just forgive her_

Kent sighed.

_I know. And I’m glad you’re looking out for me, that you’re on my side._

_Obviously,_ replied Jack. _Also it’s worse because I’m getting anxious about the game tomorrow._

_You want me to come over and cuddle? Moratorium on parent talk?_

_Yes please._

Kent and his mother returned to Faber the following day for Jack’s game, and ran into Bitty, plus a tiny blonde woman with the same eyes who could only be his mother.

“Hi, Kent!” piped Bitty.

“Hey!” said Kent. “Mom, this is my friend Bitty and his mother. He’s a figure skater too.” Bitty’s eyes got very big as he obviously remembered who Kent’s mother was.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Jacks—Mrs. Parse—Mrs. Kent’s mom!”

“Please, call me Gina,” she said, shaking his hand.

“Mama, this is Kent Parson and, um, his mother.” Mrs. Bittle seemed not to know the significance of Gina Parson, though she smiled warmly as she shook hands, but recognition lit up her face as she shook Kent’s.

“I’ve heard all about you, Kent! You’re the Olympian, right? With the medal?”

Kent would be lying if he said he didn’t get a little thrill at being singled out for the one thing his mother never did, while Gina was passed over as though she wasn’t interesting at all. He decided he liked Mrs. Bittle a lot.

“That’s me. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Bittle.”

“And are you here to watch the hockey game?” She seemed slightly puzzled. Kent darted a quick look at Bitty—was it safe to come out to her? Bitty looked frightened, if anything, so Kent just said, “Yeah, the captain of the team’s an old friend of mine. And Bitty’s my friend, too, of course.”

“Are you on the team?” asked Gina, surprised. “I thought Kent said you were a figure skater?”

“Oh, I just do it for fun nowadays,” said Bitty, averting his eyes. “I’ve been playing hockey the last couple years.”

“That must have been quite the adjustment.”

“Oh, it _was_! The skates _alone_!”

Kent spent most of the game explaining hockey to his mother. (“If the puck gets all the way to the other end before anyone gets it, they have to blow the whistle and start over at the end they were at before.” “Jack’s explained to me like five times what offsides are, but I can never remember.” “It’s not really a question of whether it’s against the rules, it’s more _how_ against the rules is it.”)

And then, deep in the third period, while they were tied 1-1, Bitty somehow got the puck into the net and Kent leapt to his feet.

“Oh my GOD!” he yelled. “BITS!”

“What’s going on?” said his mother.

“Bitty scored! If they can just hold it down for the next five minutes…” He trailed off, not willing to jinx it. “You have no idea how big this is for him, Mom. He’s going to be so excited.” In the back of his head, he knew Jack was going to be pissed off, irrational though it would be, but he shoved it aside in favor of being excited for his friend.

Samwell held out for the last five minutes. They caught up to Bitty and Mrs. Bittle afterwards, after Bitty had gotten his pads off.

“Bitty!” Kent held out his arms. “You scored the game winner!”

“Oh, Kent, I’m still sweaty…” Bitty looked bashful. Kent scoffed and gestured with both hands.

“Like I haven’t given Jack a million hugs when he’s dripping with sweat. C’mon, that deserves a hug.” Bitty accepted the hug. Kent squeezed him quickly, slapped him on the back a few times, and let him go.

“Kent!” Kent looked over his shoulder at the shout, and raised a hand to wave to Bob and Jack. Bob strode over and clapped him on the shoulder.

“How are you, son?”

“Can’t complain,” said Kent cheerfully. “You remember my mother, Gina?”

“Of course,” said Bob, and shook her hand.

“And this is your game-winning goal scorer, Eric Bittle, and his mother. Bad Bob Zimmermann.” Bob laughed.

“Just Bob is fine. I gotta say—I was a bit worried when I first saw you come out on the ice, but I guess big surprises really do come in small packages. That was a clutch shot, son.”

Bitty looked floored, while his mother was turning pink and appeared to be speechless behind him. “Wow! Um. Thank you, sir. I still can’t believe it happened. And to be honest, I’m always so scared out there—I practically took the shot with my eyes closed.”

“A good bounce is a good bounce,” said Bob philosophically. “Though I know Jack here probably wanted to make that game winner himself, huh?”

Kent looked properly at Jack, steeling himself for the cloud of grumpiness Jack was carrying with him. It was exactly as bad as he had expected. Jack’s eyes shifted away from them, his shoulders slumped slightly, his jaw was hard.

“I’m going to go shower.”

Kent almost chirped _you want company_ before he remembered he had an audience. Later, then.

Later found Jack back at the loading dock, which was his usual go-to for this kind of mood. Kent didn’t say anything, just perched next to Jack and waited.

“It should have been _mine_ ,” said Jack eventually, bitterness dripping from the words. “Today of all days, I don’t even get any points, and fucking _Bittle_ gets the GWG?”

“I know you know it doesn’t work like that,” said Kent quietly.

“I need to be mad first, Kenny.”

“You want a distraction?”

“Fuck yes.”

Kent tugged Jack’s face down and kissed him. Jack kissed back hungrily, then stood up to crowd Kent against the wall.

They made out for a minute or two, and then Kent slipped one cold hand up under Jack’s shirt to tweak a nipple. Jack jumped and swore. Kent laughed into his mouth, and Jack reached down to cup his ass with both hands. They ground together almost frantically. Kent’s mouth watered for Jack’s dick.

“I wanna blow you,” gasped Jack.

“I was literally gonna say the exact same thing.”

“We can do both.”

Kent grabbed Jack’s hand and dragged him back to the Haus at a run.

“Jack--” said Bitty as they flew by him.

“Later, Bits!” yelled Kent.

He made it up to Bitty later by asking if he wanted to skate together sometime. Bitty’s eyes grew wide and he actually clapped his hands to his cheeks.

“Oh my Lord, I would _love_ that!” he enthused. “Not—not just because you’re a famous skater, I mean, even though obviously that comes into it too, how often do you get to skate with a National champion, or an Olympian, but also just getting to _skate_ again, for _fun,_ with someone who isn’t a hockey bro, because dear Lord I love those boys but they wouldn’t know finesse if it bit them in the behind, bless their hearts—“

“Bitty,” interrupted Kent, laughing. “Don’t forget to breathe.”

It was like skating with his mother, but different in some very clear ways. Gina had the experience, and had reached a much higher level than Bitty, but she was also well past the point where her body would allow her to perform at her full range, regardless of how well in shape she kept. Figure skating was a young person’s sport, even more so than hockey. It was incredibly fun, getting to show Bitty things, and even just to ice dance together, falling into this move or that and improvising to the music. They made a regular thing of it.

Kent wouldn’t say it was easier, exactly, than skating with his mother, not when he and Gina knew each other’s capabilities so intimately, and when Kent couldn’t comfortably fall into the role of teacher (and absolutely refused to feel like a student). But he felt happier, freer with Bitty, which he chalked up to lingering shadows of his relationship with his mother that he would never fully brush away.

“It’s so weird that you know Bittle,” said Jack, after Kent found a forgotten textbook and, rather than drop it off at the Haus, gave it to Bitty to deliver at lunch. Bitty, after all, was headed there anyway, and Kent needed to finish reading a chapter of his discrete math textbook.

“It is not,” said Kent, frowning. “It’s weird that _you_ know him. He’s such a figure skater. Not a hockey bro at all.”

This was a mistake, since it prompted Jack to analyze Bitty’s play in-depth for the next seven minutes. Kent timed him.

“It’s so weird that you’re dating my captain,” said Bitty, apparently still hung up on the same textbook incident the next day.

“I’ve been dating him way longer than he’s been your captain,” Kent pointed out. Bitty fiddled with a fork.

“How did you get together?”

“Met at the Olympics,” said Kent between bites of grilled cheese. “Bonded over his dad being Bad Bob Zimmermann and my mom being Gina Jackson. Fucked. Then I won the bronze, came out to my mother, announced I was quitting competitive figure skating, and ran away to live with the Zimmermanns for five months.”

“Oh my _Lord,_ ” said Bitty, abandoning all pretense of eating. “That is the most _extra_ thing I have ever heard.”

Kent grinned, quick and bright. “I really gotta hand it to the Zimmermanns, they took it in stride. Not every day you go to the Olympics, fangirl over a figure skater, find out he’s trans and he’s doing your kid, and is pretty fucked up besides, and just offer him a place to live.”

“You really do mean all of that happened within the timeframe of the Olympics, right?”

“Dude, I mean all of that happened within two or three days. Most of it all in the same conversation. Alicia literally heard me say I’d come out to my mother and what was I going to do, and she just up and told me I was welcome if I needed a place to stay.”

“Oh my Lord,” said Bitty again, waving his hands in the air.

“Yep,” said Kent, and took another bite of grilled cheese. “Eventually I wore out my welcome and my mom figured out I was dead serious and agreed to make an effort to call me by the right pronouns and shit.”

“You lived with Jack for five months.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But you don’t even live together _now._ ”

Kent snickered. “I’m not a hockey player, so I can’t live in the Haus. And it’s good for us to have our own space occasionally. We’ll get an apartment once we graduate.”

“Wow.” Bitty picked at his napkin. “Must be nice, having it all planned out. Knowing who you’re gonna be with.”

Kent shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Jack and me were always kind of inevitable.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The basis for Kent's Toxic program](https://khashanakalashtar.tumblr.com/post/190480244505/finnglas-weirdfaggot-mockwa-%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BF%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B7-%D0%BE%D1%82)


	2. Exhibition Program

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Properly earning our rating here, folks!

_ Right, right, turn off the lights _ _  
_ _ We're gonna lose our minds tonight _ _  
_ _ What's the dealio? _ _  
_ _ I love when it's all too much _ _  
_ _ 5 a.m. turn the radio up _ _  
_ _ Where's the rock 'n roll? _ _  
_ _ Party crasher, panty snatcher _ _  
_ _ Call me up if you a gangsta _ _  
_ _ Don't be fancy, just get dancey _ _  
_ _ Why so serious? _   
_ So raise your glass if you are wrong _ _  
_ _ In all the right ways, all my underdogs _ __  
_ We will never be, never be anything but loud _ _  
_ _And nitty, gritty, dirty, little freaks._

~Raise Your Glass, P!nk 

It wasn’t exactly that Kent wasn’t aware that Bitty was…aesthetically pleasing. It was more that, between the sweaters and the giant eyes and the hair and, y’know, the five-year age difference, he’d sort of written it off as ‘cute,’ in the little kid or baby animal sense. And then senior year happened, and Bitty came back to Samwell with the chop and a new set of tank tops to show off his muscles.

It was an absolutely ordinary day when Kent looked over at Bitty and went “damn I’d like to kiss you.”

He dismissed it as an errant thought, but it kept cropping up the longer he hung out with Bitty, and it was only getting stronger.

“Jaaack,” he moaned, flinging himself onto Jack’s bed, hours after watching Bitty hold his ankle over his head, and then bend down and stick his cute little butt in the air. “Bitty’s hot and it’s driving me crazy.”

Jack only laughed, but this semester he had a class with Bitty, which was much more optimal for paying attention than hockey practice, and a few days later he texted Kent:  _ You’re right Bitty’s hot. _

Kent had him in bed that night when it occurred to him, and he was horny and not really thinking clearly, so he just said it. “What if Bitty were watching?”

Jack groaned and Kent rode him harder, faster.

“You like that, Kenny? You like the thought of Bitty watching?”

“Just sitting over there? Touching himself? Watching me get you off so good?”

“Maybe he’d like to touch,” gasped Jack, and god, this was doing it for Kent, it really was. He reached for his dick, and, oh yeah, this was not going to last much longer.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’d have you just like this and he could run his hands up your back where I can’t reach, pull at your hair hard the way you like it--”

Kent came, clamping down on Jack’s dick and rubbing at his own for all he was worth, back arched and fingers tingling. 

“Oh, crisse, fuck, you like that, huh?” gasped Jack, and took over, hammering his hips up into Kent again, again, again, before shuddering and stilling. Kent pulled off him and collapsed onto his chest. Well. That was new.

“Hey, Bitty!” said Kent cheerfully in the cafeteria the next day. He’d never seen the point of being embarrassed over jerking it to a friend. It wasn’t hurting  _ them. _

Jack, though, clearly didn’t share the sentiment, as he mumbled a greeting and failed to meet Bitty’s eyes, the back of his neck turning red. 

“Morning, Kent, Jack,” said Bitty, but his eyes were on Jack, a little frown between his eyebrows.

“Don’t mind grumpypants here, he didn’t get a lot of sleep,” said Kent quickly, throwing Bitty a lascivious wink. It worked—Jack and Bitty both blushed furiously, and Jack glared at him, but Bitty relaxed.

Jack got over it quickly, probably because team chemistry was important and he’d actively decided he had to, the weirdo. 

So of course Kent had to make it awkward again.

Samwell lost to Yale at home, 2-4. Zimms disappeared, so Kent commiserated with Bitty while he waited for the team to disperse. Then he snuck into the locker room, where he found Zimms still in the shower. Without drawing attention to himself, Kent pulled off his clothes and slipped in behind him.

“Hey, Zimms,” he said in a seductive voice. Jack made a loud noise that started out as a scream and turned into a squawk and went through at least three octaves, and Kent had to grab him before he slipped and fell into the wall. “Oh my god, you loser,” he said, unable to hold back his laughter. Jack crossed his arms and glared. “Come on,” said Kent, tugging at one hand. “Don’t be mad at me. I’m here to cheer you up.”

Jack sighed heavily, but his indignance was already melting away. “There were scouts at that game,” he admitted.

“I figured,” said Kent. “You know the rules.” 

Jack sighed again, but dutifully recited, “I played my best, they’ll either notice that or not and I can’t control that. Everyone loses games sometimes and they know that; it most likely won’t affect my chances of getting signed. And even if it does, just because I decided to try to go pro doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world if it doesn’t end up happening.”

“Good boy,” said Kent, and pulled him into a kiss. “Positive reinforcement,” he said when he broke away, smirking at Zimms. 

“You’re terrible,” Jack muttered.

“You love me, though,” said Kent confidently, trailing one hand down Jack’s chest. Jack shivered. 

“Are you serious, Kenny?”

“As a heart attack. You know what I think you should do?”

“Pick you up and fuck you against the shower wall?”

“Pick me up and fuck me against the shower wall.” Kent grinned wildly.

“Crisse, you drive me insane,” hissed Jack, and kissed him.

There’s something amazing about kissing a long-term partner, Kent reflected. You know each other perfectly, your lips, your height, exactly what angle to use and how much force, reading each other without effort. You know where to put your hands without looking, how much you can pull at hair, what spots will get a shiver or a groan and which will ruin the mood entirely by tickling. Jack broke away and kissed down Kent’s neck, and Kent pressed him ever closer, running his fingers through Jack’s wet hair. 

Jack pulled away to drop to his knees and drape one of Kent’s legs over his shoulder. Kent let the shower wall take his weight and lost himself in the sensations as Jack pressed kisses all over the insides of his thighs before finally putting his mouth Kent’s dick and swirling his tongue around it. Kent let out an appreciative groan that turned into a shaky moan when Jack  _ sucked.  _

“Gonna get me off twice tonight?” he breathed. Jack hummed in affirmation. Kent thrust gently into his mouth. 

Jack skated fingers between his legs and broke off to accuse, “You prepped for this.”

“Guilty,” said Kent in a sing-song voice. He wanted to get fucked, so sue him.

It never took long like this. Kent splayed his hands against the wall and rode the wave of electricity higher, higher, dancing impossibly long on the edge of orgasm, before it finally overtook him and he let out a long moan.

Jack sucked him through the aftershocks and then waited as Kent caught his breath, grinning smugly. “Bastard,” Kent whispered fondly, and unhooked his leg so Jack could stand up and kiss him firmly. Kent reached around and grabbed two handfuls of hockey ass. Jack grunted and rutted briefly against his hip.

“You got a condom?”

“Yeah, jeans pocket.” Reluctantly, Kent separated from Jack to dart out to the bench he’d left his clothes on and fish the condom from his pocket. He hurried back under the spray and tore it open, tossing the wrapper carelessly on the ground and rolling it onto Jack. Jack thrust into his hand just once, and then Kent hooked a leg around his waist and guided Jack’s dick inside himself. Jack bent his knees to make the angle better. Kent was loose and wet from the prep earlier, so the slide was easy. He’d come too recently for it to be really arousing, but it felt good, being filled like that. He clenched down on Jack’s dick just to be an asshole and got his hair roughly mussed in retaliation. 

Jack slipped both hands under Kent’s thighs and lifted as he straightened up. Kent wrapped both legs around his waist, and then Jack had him pressed against the wall and was fucking up into him.

The niceness-of-being-full feeling quickly grew into oh-yes-I-can-come-again. Jack was getting him good in the spot at the back of his vagina, and soon Kent was panting and so so ready for that second orgasm. He opened his eyes, and his heart clenched in his chest.

Bitty was standing there.

His eyes were enormous, his cheeks flaming, his pants tented, and he had a hand clapped over his mouth. He seemed to be frozen.

“Jack,” said Kent quietly. “We’ve got company.”

Jack pulled out and set him down so quickly Kent would have fallen had he not already been up against a wall. 

“B-Bittle,” he stuttered, flushing beautifully down his chest and ears. He didn’t turn the rest of his body to face Bitty, maintaining some privacy for himself and Kent both.

“I’m so sorry, y’all,” said Bitty. Jack speaking seemed to have loosened his tongue. “I just wanted to make sure Jack was all right, since he hadn’t come back to the Haus, and I swear I wasn’t trying to watch, I just, I just  _ froze,  _ and, and I’d just better leave, hadn’t I, and maybe we can pretend this is a very weird dream.” He started to leave.

“A hot dream,” Kent murmured, and glanced down to check. Jack wasn’t any softer than he had been before, cock bobbing straight up and smearing lube and Kent’s vaginal fluid against Jack’s abdomen. “It’s okay, Bits,” he said louder, making Bitty pause to look back at him. “Really.” Jack whipped back around to stare at Kent. “He could stay,” Kent suggested for Jack’s ears alone. Jack blinked at him several times. And then he nodded, just a little.  _ I’ll follow your lead.  _

“You can stay, if you want, Bits,” called Kent. Bitty, who had started to leave again, choked on nothing. 

“What?” His voice was an octave higher than usual, and slightly hysterical.

“No pressure,” said Kent, keeping his voice easy, unconcerned, absolutely nonreflective of his heart jackrabbiting in his chest. “But I can’t help noticing this turns you on. And, not gonna lie, it kinda turns us on, too. So we’re just going to get back to what we were doing, and if you want to stick around and watch…” He deliberately pulled his focus back to Jack, using one hand to turn his boyfriend’s face away from Bitty and make him meet Kent’s eyes. “We wouldn’t be mad.” He gave them both a few seconds to cop out, and then reached for Jack’s dick to guide it back inside himself. In almost the same motion, Jack bent his knees and picked Kent up again. 

A tiny, “Oh my Lord,” came from the other side of the room. Kent chanced a peek. Bitty was still just staring at them, but he wasn’t leaving. Jack began to thrust again. And all at once, they were back where they left off, except Jack’s eyes had a wild look in them now and Kent was sure his weren’t any better. 

“Fuck, I love your dick, Zimms,” he said, loud enough for Bitty to hear. 

“I know you do,” said Zimms, also loud enough for Bitty to hear, and a thrill ran through Kent. “You love it when I pick you up and pin you like this, like you weigh nothing.”

“God help me, I do,” agreed Kent. “Gonna fill me up, Zimms?” He chanced another peek over Jack’s shoulder.

“What’s he doing?” Jack asked in an undertone.

“He’s touching himself,” whispered Kent. “He hasn’t taken his clothes off, but he has his hand down his pants and he’s jerking off.” Bitty’s face was scarlet, but his hand was moving fast inside his sweatpants. Jack grunted quietly and increased his speed, reducing Kent’s dirty talk to a series of  _ uh uh uh _ s. He squeezed his eyes shut, then forced them open again and found himself making eye contact with Bitty. 

“Touch yourself, Kenny,” said Jack, now loud enough for Bitty again. Kent thought he heard a tiny moan from across the room. He peeled one hand away from the death grip he had on Jack’s shoulder and pressed it down between their bodies to touch his own dick. 

“Oh, god, Zimms, that’s not fair,” he moaned, and came. In the background, he heard Bitty’s moan, louder this time, and forced his eyes open to see Bitty’s face contorting as he finished, too. Kent locked eyes with Jack, whose eyes were wide. Jack’s face seemed to ask,  _ Did he just…?  _ and Kent knew his face was saying  _ ohmygod he DID _ , and that tipped Jack over. 

By the time Jack set him back on his feet—more gently, this time—Bitty was gone.

“We should not have done that,” said Jack quietly, a slight rasp to his voice. “I’m his  _ captain.  _ I have to go in there tomorrow and drill him on passing like he didn’t watch me fucking my boyfriend in the locker room.”

“To be fair, that would still be the case even if I hadn’t invited him to stay,” Kent pointed out. 

“Yes, but now it’s that he watched me fucking my boyfriend in the locker room and  _ got off on it, _ ” said Jack, and Kent’s dick twitched. 

“Fair enough. Pull your head together, Zimms, team chemistry depends on it.” 

Jack glared at him and Kent laughed until his knees buckled. 

According to Jack’s report, Bitty didn’t draw attention to himself at all in practice, avoiding Jack’s eyes the whole time. He didn’t find Kent in the dining hall, either. The same thing happened the next day, and the day after that.

Kent thought about texting him, but what the fuck was he supposed to say? He didn’t even know what he was trying to accomplish other than not letting this fester between them. 

By the time a week had passed, he was starting to think Jack had been right. If he’d just let Bitty escape at first, they probably would all have gotten over the embarrassment by now. Damn his libido. 

“This  _ is  _ affecting team chemistry, and it’s your fault,” Jack told him after a week and a half. “Bittle won’t pass to me, he’ll barely take direction at all, like he’s trying to pretend he’s not paying attention to me and then he realizes he’s actually supposed to be paying attention to me.” He sighed heavily. “Not to mention now he sits on the other side of the room during class, and I’m going to have to find someone else to partner with at this rate.”

“And he didn’t show up for our skating date,” Kent reminded him. Jack may be having team chemistry issues (and pie chemistry issues), but he and Bitty hadn’t been  _ friends.  _ Kent was the one who had one of those on the line.

Eventually, he texted Bitty, a simple  _ hey,  _ and got no response.

He sent another one a couple days later. Then a ‘ _ look we should really talk about this,’ _ and eventually he buried his pride and sent ‘ _ I don’t want to lose you as a friend.’  _

Jack had no better luck. 

“He answers direct questions, and he’s doing better interacting with the rest of the team, but he still won’t look at me. Ransom and Holster have started asking me what I did to him.”

Kent thought about it. He slept on it. And he came up with a dumb as fuck plan.

“Would you actually, legit, want to have sex with Bitty?” Kent asked, staring at the ceiling and ignoring the flames in his cheeks. Jack choked and set down the contract he was reading.

“Um. Like a threesome?”

“Yeah.”

“…Kent.”

“What?”

“Isn’t this fucked up enough?”

Kent snorted at the rough phrasing.

“I dunno. It can’t really get any worse, can it?”

_ So feel free to ignore this too— _ Kent deleted it. Too confrontational.  _ Let me know if I’m out of line here— _ Kent deleted that too. It didn’t sound like him at all.  _ Got nothing really to lose here, so would you ever wanna actually hook up with me and Jack? _

He sent it before he could talk himself out of it.

_ Kent Parson are you out of your damn mind _

Kent whooped, startling Jack. “I win! All my plans are the best plans.”

Jack stared at him. “Tell me you did not just proposition him and it  _ worked. _ ”

_ Maybe! Can’t really make it more awkward than this, can we? _

Bitty didn’t reply to that.

But he did show up at lunch the next day.

“I reiterate, Kent Parson, are you out of your goddamned mind?” Bitty plonked down with a tray full of mac ‘n’ cheese. Kent refrained from stealing a noodle only because he was already on pretty thin ice.

Ice. Heh.

He smiled winningly at Bitty and took a bite out of a carrot without breaking eye contact.

“Are you serious? I mean, have you even talked to Jack about this?”

“I suggested it. He didn’t say no.”

Bitty heaved a sigh. “That doesn’t count. What makes you think he’s not just going along with your crazy because he thinks you aren’t serious? You were the one who asked me to stay, um. Before.” His ears turned red and he stared down at his macaroni, shoving a bite in his mouth as though to shut himself up.

“Oh, he’s into you,” said Kent. “I’m absolutely certain of that. He’s just, y’know,  _ Jack  _ about it.”

“No,” said Bitty, still in a staring contest with the macaroni. “I don’t know. I don’t understand anything that’s happened this  _ month _ , at  _ least _ .”

“Fair enough,” said Kent philosophically, and succumbed to the urge to steal a noodle. 

Bitty didn’t say anything more. Kent waited him out as long as he could, but eventually he had to go to class.

“Don’t vanish on me, again, yeah?”

Bitty looked up, startled, but promised nothing.

Jack was trying to do his homework on the Haus couch, trying being the operative word because Kent was draped over him, playing with his hair and generally making an attempt to be the biggest possible pest.

“I can’t believe you are willingly sitting on this couch, either of you.” Kent and Jack’s heads shot up in a unison that was probably amusing from the outside. Bitty stood in front of them, arms crossed, looking as though he was stubborning through the embarrassment. 

“B-Bittle,” said Jack, and then seemed to run out of words. The back of his neck flushed red.

Bitty cleared his throat, opened his mouth, and closed it. Then he swallowed visibly and said, “You said you’d show me that book, Jack?”

Kent superseded Jack’s “Huh?” by casually putting a hand over his mouth.

“Yeah, come on,” he said, and stood, dragging Jack behind him and up the stairs. He shooed them both into Jack’s room and shut the door, which seemed to ignite Bitty’s tendency to babble.

“I cannot  _ believe  _ I’m doing this, you’re my  _ captain _ and my captain’s  _ boyfriend  _ but I just keep thinking about that,  _ that night  _ and  _ then  _ I keep thinking about what you said about how we can’t possibly make this any  _ worse  _ and I, what do I have to lose, really, you’re both just  _ insufferably  _ attractive!”

Kent would like to say he stopped Bitty’s mouth with a kiss, but he was laughing too hard to even attempt it. Bitty stomped his foot.

“Stop laughing at me, you horrible man!”

“Bittle,” rumbled Jack. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. We’ll figure something out.”

“I do want it, though!” said Bitty. And then, nervously, suddenly unsure, “Do you?”

“Yes,” said Jack simply. 

“Oh hell yes,” said Kent.

Again, he thought about kissing Bitty, but stopped himself. Kissing seemed too...intimate. They weren’t dating, this was just sex. Instead, Kent folded down to his knees and said, “Hey Bits, can I suck your dick?”

“Oh Lord,” said Bitty faintly. “Yes. Yes, you can.”

Kent unzipped Bitty’s pants and tugged his boxers down, pulling out his dick.

“You’re a virgin, right, Bits?”

“Um,” said Bitty. “Yes.”

Jack’s “Wait, what?” was overshadowed by the taste of Bitty’s dick in Kent’s mouth.

“Oh, Lord,” said Bitty again. Kent hummed happily. Bitty wasn’t hard yet, but he was rapidly getting there. “Jack?”

“Yes?”

“Are you…just gonna stand there?”

“I don’t have to.”

“Please don’t.”

Kent flicked his eyes upward to see Jack leaning down to press kisses to Bitty’s jaw, and then down his neck (but avoiding his mouth, Kent noticed, they seemed to be on the same page here), and then to unbutton his button-down. “Is this okay?” he asked quietly. Bitty nodded fervently. Kent took the opportunity to shove Bitty’s pants down to his knees and wrap his hands around the backs of Bitty’s thighs. 

“Can we move?” said Jack, who Kent realized was trying to suck on a nipple and was entirely too tall for it. He pulled off, laughing a little, and together they directed Bitty onto Jack’s bed. Kent had been intending for him to sit on the edge, but Jack laid him out completely and, well, that works too. Kent climbed up beside him and stole Jack’s idea, wrapping his lips around a hard nub and sucking, then biting a little when he didn’t get enough reaction. Jack cuffed him lightly on the back of the head and laid down to suck Bitty off himself. 

“I want—to touch you too,” panted Bitty, and Kent pulled off.

“You wanna suck me off?” he offered, pushing down the internalized-transphobia voice in his head telling him not to ask. “It’s not that different from Jack’s, really, just smaller.” T had done wonders for his dick. It was his favorite thing. 

“O-Okay.” 

Kent scooted up to kneel over Bitty’s face, and carefully directed his dick into Bitty’s mouth. “Suck,” he directed. “Don’t bite. Tongue is good.”

Bitty obliged. He was too much saliva, not enough suction at first, but he quickly got the hang of it, and even brought his hands up to clutch at Kent’s bottom and direct him, unmistakably, to thrust.

“Yeah?” Kent breathed. 

“Mm-hm,” said Bitty around his dick. The vibration was  _ excellent. _

“Oh, keep doing that,” said Kent, and began to fuck his mouth. 

He lost himself in it for a long minute, enjoying each sensation for itself, gasping when Bitty figured out how to use his tongue  _ just right,  _ and was just starting to approach his peak when Bitty pulled off to groan, “I’m close,” pant for a few seconds, and come hard. Kent climbed off of him, trying not to show his annoyance. 

Jack had pulled off to stroke Bitty through his orgasm, and now he grabbed a tissue from the box beside his bed to wipe his hand off. He was still completely dressed, erection straining at his pants, so Kent moved to unzip him.

“You want me to finish the job?” Jack panted, voice a little raspy, nodding at Kent’s dick hanging out. 

“Sixty-nine?” suggested Kent. Jack nodded and laid down next to Bitty as Kent flipped around the other way. With practiced ease, they found the best position and took each other into their mouths.

Sometimes they drew this out, but today it was a rush to finish the job, both of them pulling out the stops with lips and tongues. Kent teased Jack’s ballsack, and Jack retaliated by slipping two fingers first into his mouth and then into Kent’s vagina and jackhammering his G-spot. Kent gasped and pressed the pads of his fingers into Jack’s perineum, massaging roughly. Jack jerked, once, twice, and Kent braced himself as Jack came in his mouth. Jack shuddered through the aftershocks, pulled out, and passed Kent a tissue. Kent spat the semen into it, balled it up, and tossed it onto the floor, just in time for Jack to redouble his efforts and push Kent over the edge. 

When he got his breath back, he demanded, “Did you just finger-fuck me with a hand covered in someone else’s cum?”

“No,” said Jack, sounding wounded. “I used the other hand.”

“It’s not  _ fair  _ being ambidextrous enough for that,” complained Kent, whose left hand was practically useless. He turned himself right ways up and collapsed between them, only now remembering to look back at Bitty, who was watching them with huge eyes.

“How you doing, Bits?”

“I. Wow,” said Bitty, and Kent laughed.

“That should  _ not  _ have worked,” said Jack the next day, having dropped by after class.

“He sat next to you in class, didn’t he,” guessed Kent, grinning. “Oh, wait! He served you the puck in practice.”

“He—that isn’t—I  _ know  _ you know that’s wrong,” spluttered Jack and Kent couldn’t hold back his laughter. 


	3. Three-Jump Combination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This is NOT the basis for Kent’s Hall of the Mountain King program, but you can listen to the music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd6Xgxgofkc)

_ I'm on the floor, floor _  
_ I love to dance _  
_ So give me more, more _  
_ 'Til I can't stand _  
_ Get on the floor, floor _  
_ Like it's your last chance _  
_ If you want more, more _  
_ Then here I am _  
_ Starships were meant to fly _  
_ Hands up, and touch the sky _  
_ Can't stop 'cause we're so high _  
_ Let's do this one more time _  
~Starships, Nicki Minaj

If anything, it made them get closer. Kent and Bitty would occasionally hook up, and while Jack and Bitty didn’t, they got generally more tactile, letting hugs linger and hands fall on shoulders, and they all spent even more time together than before. Bitty followed Kent back to his room after skating the following week. Kent stripped off his sweaty shirt, flung it at the hamper, and collapsed onto the bed shirtless. It was going to be a long time before he stopped reveling in being able to do that. 

Bitty laid next to him and traced a finger over his top surgery scars. 

“When did you get this done?”

“Summer before last. Recovery hurt like a bitch, but it was worth it.”

They were quiet for a moment, then Kent said quietly, “You know Jack bought me my first binder? Or, like, he let me pick it out and all, but he gave me a gift certificate to gc2b.”

“That was nice of him,” said Bitty cautiously. 

Kent laughed hollowly. “I hated him for it.” Bitty sat up, startled.

“How come?”

Kent sighed and tried to find the words.

“He did it because I was binding with doubled up bras, right? And that’s not really safe. But he didn’t ask me about it or anything, probably cause he knew I hated taking  _ yet more _ charity from him, just presented me with this gift card like my fucking cis savior.” He ran his tongue over his lips thoughtfully. 

“Yet more charity?” Bitty’s voice was cautious.

“I was already living on the Zimmermanns’ dime. Bed and board. I didn’t have a Canadian work permit.”

“Oh.”

“But it made me feel like this dumb kid who doesn’t even know how to be trans right, who needs this cis dude to come show him the light, you know? Or like he thought that’s what I was. Because I  _ knew  _ it wasn’t safe, and I was choosing to spend my sponsorship money on getting these instead.” He gestured to one of his tattoo sleeves. “And maybe it was a dumb choice, putting off investing in a binder, but it was  _ my _ choice, and it wasn’t his job to fix me.”

Bitty laid his head back down on Kent’s pec and nodded slowly. “That makes sense, I guess.”

“I forgave him for it, ‘cause I knew he just wanted to make it so I didn’t have to choose at all. He had the money, why shouldn’t he spend it on making my life a little better if he wanted? That’s how he looked at it. It’s a good binder company, too, so I couldn’t decide whether to be madder at him for solving my problems so _well_ , like he didn’t even have the decency to be  _ bad  _ at it so I could prove I didn’t need him to do that shit for me, or glad he hadn’t wasted the money.”

“But you used it?”

“Free binder, dude. Of course I used it.”

Bitty turned his head to press a small kiss to the nearest scar.

“Did he help pay for your surgery, too?”

“Yes,” Kent admitted, “but he  _ offered  _ that time, didn’t just swan in and dump the money on my desk. I brought up top surgery, and he said he’d help pay for it if I wanted, if that would make it happen faster, and I did all the research and doctor’s appointments and crap myself. And we’d been together two years at that point, so I was more comfortable with taking his money. I mean, we’re basically married, right?”

“Right,” said Bitty, staring off into space.

“Can you still do a triple axel?” he asked at lunch the next day.

“Yes,” said Kent. “I worked hard for my triple axel, damned if I was going to lose it after that.”

“…Could you do your Vancouver free skate?”

Kent opened his mouth, then shut it. 

“I haven’t practiced that one since I did it at the Olympics,” he said slowly. “Not all the way through. But I still have all the elements.”

“That doesn’t mean much,” pointed out Bitty. “That jump sequence alone.”

“Yeah,” Kent agreed. “I couldn’t do it right now, I’d definitely fall in the middle there. Or if that didn’t do it, the flying camel combo would take me out. But it shouldn’t take long to get it back. I’ll see when Jack has time to spot me.”

“What?”

“You don’t do triple axels in an empty rink with no one to get help if you hurt yourself, that’s just stupid.”

“No, I—I understand that, you do remember that I skate too, bless your heart? But—you don’t need to work to get the routine back just cause I asked if you could do it, Kent, it was just a question!” He set down his fork to more effectively glare.

“I know,” Kent assured him. “But now that you mention it? I kinda really want to.” He grinned. Bitty’s look of irritated bafflement melted into affection.

“Boys,” he sighed, flinging his hands in the air dramatically.

Kent dug up his old program sound file, an edited version of  _ In the Hall of the Mountain King, _ and just listened, visualizing the routine.  _ Here _ was a turn,  _ here _ another,  _ here _ was where he had to start building speed if he wanted to land the axel. He walked through it as well as he could flat-footed on his dorm room floor, which was like a fifth the size of Faber. He joined the team after practice and ran through the step sequences and the solo spin—all that he dared do when the ice was all cut up. And he got Jack to supervise as he practiced the jumps and the spin sequences. 

“I think I can run it all the way through next time,” he told Jack excitedly at the end of one such practice, having run through the final combination spin flawlessly several times.

“Cool,” said Jack. “I’ll tell Bittle.”

“I didn’t mean it’d be ready to perform! There’s miles of difference between run the whole thing through and perform it!”

“You’re not planning to compete with it,” Jack pointed out. “Bittle will be impressed even if it isn’t totally clean. And don’t you want to, you know, share your excitement with him when you do it all the way through the first time?”

“…Fine,” said Kent.

He found a package outside his dorm room door the next day after class. Curious, he tucked it under one arm as he unlocked the door and flicked on the light.  _ Kenny_, said the label in Jack’s handwriting. He snagged a pair of scissors off the desk and cut it open. A pile of fabric spilled out. Kent picked it up and unfolded it.

It was a male figure skater’s costume.

The pants were basic black, nothing unusual. The top…it was a plunging V-neck. Half of it was black, but mesh, a spray of silver sequins running up the torso and over the shoulder, spiraling down the arm. The other half was red. 

It was very much reminiscent of the outfit Kent had worn to do this program at the Olympics, which Jack had seen all of once. 

If it wasn’t for the testosterone, Kent knew he would have burst into tears. Instead, he picked up the phone.

“Before you say anything, this is your Christmas present,” said Jack instead of hello.

Kent smiled. “It’s amazing,” he said, trying to let all of his gratitude into his tone. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome, Kenny,” said Jack quietly, smile audible. 

“Are you at the Haus? I need to kiss you, like, immediately.”

“Actually, I’m in your common room,” said Jack, and Kent walked out, phone still clutched to his ear and costume to his chest, and bolted down the stairs. He hung up as he spotted Jack in the doorway of the common room and ran into his arms, hooking the arm still holding the phone around Jack’s neck to drag him down into a kiss which went on and on, Jack rocking them gently with both arms around Kent’s waist. 

“Let’s go back to your room,” Jack broke off eventually to say. “I want to see it on.” Suddenly, that was the most important thing Kent could possibly be doing, and he took off back up the stairs. Jack followed with a laugh. 

Safely back behind closed doors, Kent stripped and pulled on the costume, rotating in place so Jack could see it until Jack stopped him with a hand on his arm, reeled him in by it, and began planting kisses down his neck.

“You look.” Kiss. “So hot.” Kiss. “In that.”

“You want sex? Now? You just got me into this outfit.”

“And now I’m going to get you out of it again.”

“…who are you and what have you done with Jack Zimmermann, my boyfriend has never been that smooth in his life.”

“You did set me up for it.” Jack’s fingers slipped down Kent’s spine and between his ass cheeks, pressing at the pucker there. “Thoughts?”

“ohmyGOD yes.”

Kent showed up about twenty minutes before he’d told Bitty to be there, long enough to warm up and try a few of the more flexibility-requiring moves in the new outfit, make sure he wouldn’t rip anything. The sleeves were just a tad longer than he’d like, but they wouldn’t impede any movement. Other than that, everything was in perfect working order.

“Kent! Oh my God, you look amazing!” Kent grinned and posed, showing off for Bitty. He waved to Jack, up in the sound booth, to start the music, and struck the opening pose. 

Step sequence, to begin with. Feet out, then in. Backward, forward, backward. The coveted triple axel. Forward, backward, forward, glide. It wasn’t beautiful, not by Kent’s standards, lacking the precision of the Olympic performance, but he was  _ doing it_. Triple toe, double loop. Step sequence, camel spin, triple flip. Exhilaration flooded Kent’s lungs and he readied himself for the jump sequence. 

He underrotated the triple Lutz, but he was still on his feet, still able to move right into the Euler and the double loop. More footwork. Spin on the left foot, free leg high, swap feet, spin, cross legs, forward, spin on the right, swap feet again, down into a sit spin. Up, swap feet, camel, grab his free foot for donut, up over his head into a Biellmann and down again, but still spinning, spinning, until finally he set his right foot down. The combination spin lasted nearly seventeen seconds. 

He had time for half a breath, and then more footwork. Triple toe. Forward at an angle. Double Salchow. Triple Salchow into a double toe. Longer step sequence, taking him across the ice in a series of little spins and twists that Jack always claimed made him dizzy just watching. High kick, a few steps and then—spin, leap and switch legs in midair, land and camel. Four revolutions, and then reach back and grab his foot.  _ Ten  _ revolutions. Up over his head, one hand on his skate and one on his knee. Four more revolutions, and down. No falls, no touching the ice with his hands.

He finished the routine with a flourish and struck his ending pose.

“Kent!” Bitty was skating toward him. Adrenaline was coursing through Kent, and he didn’t even stop to think about it, just grabbed Bitty’s face in both hands and kissed him. 

For four glorious seconds, Bitty kissed him back.

And then Kent remembered what he was doing and pulled away. 

They stared at each other, mutely horrified. Bitty pulled away and skated for the entrance, only to halt abruptly when Jack appeared and blocked his way.

“Jack!” Bitty spluttered. “Oh my Lord, I am so. Sorry!”

“It’s okay, Bittle,” said Jack, an unreadable expression on his face. “I’m not mad at you. I think maybe Kent and I need to have a conversation, but, euh. Please don’t go back to avoiding us?”

Bitty appeared to have no response to that, and after a few seconds Jack got out of his way and he climbed off the ice.

The trouble with having life-altering moments in a skating rink, Kent reflected, was that you couldn’t effectively storm off. It was Bitty’s turn to awkwardly rush through unlacing his skates and wiping down his blades. Kent stayed put.

Jack stepped out onto the ice in his sneakers and walked over to Kent, carefully but without hesitation, confidence born of a lifetime spent there. 

“It’s going to be okay, Kenny,” he said, reaching out a hand to touch Kent’s shoulder. Kent swizzled backwards out of reach without even thinking about it, and Jack let his hand drop.

“Aren’t you mad?” Kent hardly recognized his own voice.

“Not nearly as much as I would have thought,” said Jack, sounding almost confused. “Did you know you liked him, too?”

Kent shook his head, mutely.

“Didn’t think so. And it’s not like you aren’t still in love with me, right?”

Despite the words, there was a hint of anxiety in his eyes. Kent shook his head again. It cleared.

“Then we’ll figure it out, okay?”

Unable to bear the separation any longer, Kent skated forward again and Jack pulled him into a hug, resting his cheek on Kent’s head.

They stood there until Kent started to shiver and Jack pulled away.

“Let’s go home, eh?”

“Your place or mine?” Kent tried to smirk at him.

“Yours. Less likelihood of Bittle.”

Even though Kent knew he just meant ‘and Bittle would be distracting right now, also he seemed to want space,’ it still made him flinch. Jack just smiled sadly and took his hand. They walked off the ice together. Jack waited patiently while Kent took his skates off, and then took his hand again to walk back to Kent’s dorm. They climbed the stairs in silence, and collapsed onto Kent’s bed. Jack hauled him over his own chest and cradled him.

“Talk to me?” he requested after maybe 30 seconds of silence.

“My head’s all fucked up,” said Kent into Jack’s chest. “Like. I just cheated on you, didn’t I?” A ball of self-loathing slid down his esophagus into his stomach and radiated guilt out to all his limbs.

“No, I don’t think so,” said Jack thoughtfully. “I think cheating implies some measure of  _ intent._” 

That surprised a laugh out of Kent. “I thought you were going to say involves more than kissing.”

“Would that have helped?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think so.”

A few seconds of silence. “I--I  _ like _ him, though,” said Kent, almost choking on it. “Why aren’t you mad at me?”

“Because I saw the look on your face, I think.” Jack petted his hair. Kent suppressed an urge to scream. “You were so happy, and you expressed that, and I wish it had been me standing there if only because I never want to see you look that horrified and guilty again. And especially not when it ruined your big moment.”

Kent wished it wasn’t so difficult to cry anymore. All he could do was bury his face in Jack’s t-shirt, inhale the smell of him, and  _ hurt.  _

“Look,” said Jack, sighing a little, “you and me, this wasn’t easy. It took a lot of trial and error to get here. A lot of learning about ourselves, and each other, like how we need enough space to not be on top of each other constantly, and how I’m never really going to understand your relationship with your mother, and that’s okay.”

“We thought we were the same, when we met,” said Kent softly.

“I don’t think we were wrong, exactly. We understood each other, in a way I never thought anyone would. But your path to healing from your mother’s life wasn’t the same as my path to healing from my father’s life, because I’m not you, and your mother isn’t my father, and I never had to convince my father to use the right pronouns, and you never overdosed on anxiety meds.” He tilted Kent’s face up with one finger, and Kent met his eyes with some trepidation, but Jack was smiling softly. “I looked at you and saw the most beautiful, compelling spirit I’d ever seen, and I still do. I love you so much it hurts if I think about it too hard.”

Something like a sob tore itself out of Kent’s chest. “I love you too, so much, Jack, I don’t have a poem or whatever the fuck that was to say back but I do, I promise, please,  _ please  _ don’t break up with me for my own good.” Jack’s face twisted into alarmed confusion, and that was good, that meant Kent probably was reading too much into that speech.

“No, Kenny, what? Why would I do that?”

“That just, that sounded a lot like it was going to end with ‘I love you enough to let you go,’ and telling me to go after Bitty if that’s what I want, and  _ no. _ ”

“Crisse, no, I’m not  _ that  _ selfless,” said Jack, and they both had to stop and laugh a little at that. “No, I just wanted you to know. Although, I actually was going to tell you to go after Bittle if you want? But I’m definitely not breaking up with you.”

“...Huh?”

“Where I was  _ going  _ with this, before you distracted me, was that we’ve already done the work of figuring out how we fit together, and we already know we can’t let ourselves drown in each other and become each other’s everything, that we only end up hurting each other doing that because we aren’t actually the same person. We already know that we need other friends and hobbies and not to live in the same one-room dorm space with no time apart. So how does that extend to ‘I have to be your only boyfriend’? Why shouldn’t you have two boyfriends if that’s what you want?”

The guilt drained out of Kent’s chest and left only shock behind. He stared at Jack for a long moment, mouth open until Jack nudged it shut with a fingertip and Kent glared at him on principle.

“That’s...you’d be okay with that?” he asked finally. 

“Yeah, I think I would,” said Jack. 

Kent stared at him a few seconds longer, and then burrowed into Jack’s chest. “I don’t deserve you,” he muttered, not even sure Jack could hear him.

“You deserve everything I can give you.”

...Apparently he could.

They made love that night, soft and slow and tremulous. Jack spent hours just  _ touching  _ Kent, stroking his arms and legs and face, planting kisses at his throat and hairline and wrists,  _ cherishing,  _ and mostly batting Kent away when he tried to return the favor. By the time he slid home, Kent was aching for it, writhing with need. He locked his legs around Jack’s hips, holding him mostly still, and reached up with shaking hands to frame Jack’s face, stroking his thumbs over cheek and eyebrow and bottom lip, holding eye contact that sometimes felt like the most intimate part of the whole affair.

Jack caught a wandering hand in his own, kissed the knuckles, and laced their fingers together. Kent wrapped the other one around the back of his neck and dragged him into a kiss. A largely ineffective one, since they were both panting, but even the light brush of Jack’s lips on his made it perfect. Using his heels, he urged Jack into those short, shallow thrusts that took Kent exactly where he wanted to be. Jack rolled them onto their sides, cushioning the pointy bits by bunching up the bedspread and freeing a hand to jerk Kent off. 

It wasn’t anywhere near the best  _ orgasm  _ Kent had ever had, but it might break the top five best  _ sex.  _

After he finished, Kent loosened his grip just enough to give Jack the room to pull almost all the way out and thrust in again, again and again, driving himself over his own edge. They lay there, sweaty and entangled, and Jack petted Kent’s cheek with a shaking hand.

“I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” Kent promised.

It was only by keeping an active lookout for Bitty that Kent spotted him across the dining hall, holding a tray and staring at Kent, very obviously trying to decide whether or not to come over. Kent waved at him. Bitty startled, then slowly wound his way across the hall to sit reluctantly down across from Kent.

“Hi,” he said, and Christ, it was just wrong for Bitty to make himself that small.

It made Kent forget everything he planned to lead in with and blurt out, “So Jack thinks I should date both of you.”

Bitty stared at him. Shook his head as though to clear it. Stared at him again. Said weakly, “I’m sorry, you’re gonna have to say that again.”

“Jack thinks I should date both of you,” Kent repeated. “Keep dating him. But also date you. At the same time.”

“People  _ do  _ that?” said Bitty. “Like, polygamy? The Mormon thing?”

“...We’re not gonna unpack all of that,” said Kent. “Yeah, it’s a thing. It’s polyamory, though. None of us are married.”

“It seems awfully lopsided,” said Bitty doubtfully.

“How do you mean?”

“Well...what about Jack? He doesn’t date me too?”

Kent paused. “I think he would’ve mentioned it, if that had been his plan.” He gnawed on his bottom lip thoughtfully. “Why? Do you have a crush on him?”

Bitty colored faintly. “He’s not exactly hard on the eyes,” he muttered. Kent laughed.

“Can’t disagree with you there. As far as I know that’s not something he’s interested in right now, but hey, maybe things will change as we spend more time together.”

“And also,” said Bitty, soldiering on, “on the topic of lopsided, you and him have been together forever, and you’ve only known me for a hot minute. How can I possibly fit into that?”

Kent shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t see the issue? As long as neither of us  _ expects  _ you, as my brand-new boyfriend, to hold the same place in my life as my long-term boyfriend.” He gestured expressively. “Like, if Jack and I broke up first, and then you and I started dating, you wouldn’t expect us to be sharing finances and shit right off the bat, just because Jack helped me pay for some stuff before. It would be starting from scratch, basically, right?” Bitty nodded. “So what’s the difference? Some nights I go out with you, and we’re a new couple, and some nights I’m with Jack, and we’re an established couple, and probably some nights we all hang out together. Maybe have more sex.” He winked, just to see Bitty blush harder. “But look, I was gonna do this in order, do you even want to date me? Cause if you just wanted to kiss me, that’s fine, no harm, no foul.”

“I do!” said Bitty hurriedly. 

“Cool.” Kent shot him another wink and a smirk, plus finger guns.

“I’ve changed my mind,” said Bitty, but he couldn’t keep from laughing, and Kent felt his face pull into a real smile he couldn’t have controlled if he tried. He ducked his head to hide it, but Bitty was getting up to slide into a seat next to him. “Can I kiss you on purpose now?”

Kent glanced around quickly—Murphy says Shitty would catch them at it and go on a rant that caught the attention of the whole dining hall before they could explain it to him—but didn’t spot anyone he knew. He nodded.

Bitty leaned in closer, and Kent met him halfway.

“And now, knead until smooth and elastic, eight to ten minutes,” Kent read from his perch atop the kitchen table, legs swinging.

“You do not  _ knead  _ a goddamned _ pie crust_, you horrible man, stop  _ reading the wrong recipe_!” Bitty stormed over and yanked the recipe book away as Kent cracked up. Even Jack was snickering. “If you’re not going to  _ help,  _ at least…” He seemed to reach a level of indignation too great for words. 

“Help? Eric Richard Bittle! That’s your homework right there! Are you suggesting I help you  _ cheat _ ?” Bitty leveled a glare at him.

“Sorry, Bittle, but you literally signed up for this,” said Jack, grinning madly. 

“He is  _ your  _ boyfriend when he is  _ trying to ruin a pie crust. _ ” Kent and Jack lost it all over again.

“Aw, Bits, you don’t love me anymore?” Kent hopped off the table to come up behind Bitty and wrap his arms around Bitty’s shoulders, tugging him back into a hug and getting flour all over his arms in the process. Bitty elbowed him in the gut. Laughing, Kent backed off, and made for Jack instead.

“Zimms still loves me, don’t you, Zimms?”

“Yes,” Jack answered easily, and held his own pie tin out of reach. “I’m still not letting you ruin this pie crust.”

“I am  _ wounded,  _ Zimberly…” 

“You guys are super cute,” said Lardo from the doorway. “It’s sickening.”

“Aw, Lardo, your prince will pull his head out of his ass someday,” said Kent, causing Lardo to give him a strange look.

“Before or after yours do?” Kent followed her gaze over his shoulder. Bitty and Jack were capitalizing on his distraction to work on their project. He stepped into the hallway so they wouldn’t hear him.

“You see it too? I thought maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see,” he admitted. 

“I’m not sure  _ they’ve  _ noticed,” said Lardo. “I think Bitty thinks his concern for Jack’s future plans is because they determine  _ your  _ future plans. And Jack’s just…”

“Wrapped up in contracts,” agreed Kent. “Contracts and finals. I was thinking of maybe trying to coax them into some sort of compromising position at the kegster.”

“It doesn’t even have to be compromising. Just make them hang out together without a pie between them.”

“Kent Parson, why did I not know you speak Spanish?”

“Uh.” Kent set down his armful of solo cups. “Never came up?”

“Jack talks in French  _ all the time! _ ” Bitty didn’t quite slam a pie down on the table, but it was a near thing.

“Jack grew up in a bilingual household located in a bilingual province, speaking the two mother tongues of North American hockey,” Kent pointed out. “I spent part of my childhood with my dad, who spoke Spanish, and part of it with my stepdad, who doesn’t, but all of it with my mother, who doesn’t. I relearned it when I was older, and since my friend Lasky graduated, the only time I get to practice is watching telenovelas. It isn’t the same thing at all.”

“I mentioned to Jack earlier that I was thinking of taking French so he could help me, and he suggested I take Spanish so you could.” 

If Kent didn’t miss his mark, there was just a touch of  _ hurt  _ there. Bitty was staring just past him, like he didn’t want to meet Kent’s eyes.

“It isn’t personal. He knows how much I love speaking Spanish, and that I don’t have anyone to speak it with. And Jack is pretentious as fuck about French, he’d spend half his time arguing with your textbook and the other half being a complete shit, and he knows it.” That got Bitty to look at him.

“Arguing with my textbook?” 

“Quebecois is very much not Parisian French.”

“Oh.” Bitty seemed to relax.

Well. That was interesting.

Kent tended to stay at Haus kegsters longer than Jack, which struck him as ironic, but it worked out for them. Jack did his requisite socializing and then snuck back to his room to watch documentaries or golf, while Kent ate up the music and the crush of bodies. Dancing was just  _ better  _ when the music was so loud you couldn’t hear yourself and a hundred strangers were dancing with you. So Kent would find himself in the middle of the floor for song after song, until he either snuck up to follow Jack and pounce on him or passed out in a corner.

Today was no different, except that Kent was nursing a single cup of spiked lemonade, for covert purposes, and keeping a strict watch on Jack, aided by a pair of shutter shades Lardo pressed into his hands. Bitty was dancing with him, which made it more difficult than anticipated, but was also very fun. Kent got to grind up on him in the middle of the dance floor, and was treated to the sight of Bitty leaning his head back on one of Kent’s shoulders, which obligated Kent to kiss every part of Bitty’s face he could reach. Which, again,  _ yes,  _ but also Jack was going to leave soon, and how was Kent supposed to get him alone with Bitty without Bitty feeling ditched?

But it was Kent’s lucky day.

“Lord, I’m thirsty!” sighed Bitty, picking his head up and breaking away. “I’m going to get a drink, sugar.”

“Keep Jack company,” Kent suggested, trying hard not to sound like this was a crucial part of his plan. “He’s over there being a wallflower.”

Which was, A, not quite true—Jack was involved in a discussion with Ransom—and B, on the opposite side of the room from the drinks. But Kent was confident in Bitty’s ability to steam straight past these obstacles, and he did. Kent reminded himself to go back to dancing so he didn’t look as though he was watching them despite the help of the shutter shades. Bitty collected a drink and then wove around the edge of the crowd until he found Jack, who stopped talking to Ransom almost immediately—Kent smirked—and struck up a conversation with Bitty. After a minute, Jack started telling a story, gesturing in the air, to Bitty, who was looking frankly lovestruck. If Kent had to guess, going off the hand motions and Jack’s admittedly limited repertoire, it was the scared-off-the-whole-football-team story. 

And then—that was just too damn cute. Bitty had his phone out and was framing a selfie with them both, while Jack leaned awkwardly over to fit. Perfect. Kent couldn’t have suggested a better idea himself. Because yes, that put them so close together, and now the phone was lowered but they were staring into each other’s eyes, and getting closer—

And then they broke apart, looking anywhere but at each other, and Jack said something, and Bitty nodded, and Jack bolted upstairs.

Kent forced his way through the crowd and grabbed Bitty by the shoulders. Bitty shrieked and flailed, cuffing Kent lightly in the head. “Oh, it’s you!” he exclaimed, turning around to see. “Don’t sneak up on a boy like that, Mr. Parson!”

“ _Kiss him,_ ” said Kent, pulling off the shutter shades for emphasis.

Bitty faltered. “Wh-what?”

“Go after him and kiss him.”

Bitty didn’t pretend not to know the significance. “Are you sure he likes me?”

“Bits. Bitty. I of all people know what Jack Zimmermann looks like when he likes someone.”

“Okay,” said Bitty, whispered so low Kent couldn’t actually hear him at all and had to read his lips. He handed his drink to Kent and bolted up the stairs after Jack.

Unable to resist, Kent handed the shades and the drink off to some rando in the crowd and snuck up after them. They had, very handily, left Jack’s door wide open, so Kent could stand in a shadow and watch.

They were standing facing each other. Bitty’s hands rested lightly on Jack’s chest, and Jack’s huge hands clutched Bitty’s triceps. 

“ _Jack,_ ” pleaded Bitty.

“I—Bitty,” said Jack. “Kent?” He’d apparently lost the ability to communicate in entire thoughts, but by now Bitty was almost as adept at interpretation as Kent.

“Kent told me to come up here,” he said quietly. Then, “ _Please_ , Jack.”

“Oh,” said Jack, and it looked like a million realizations were cascading on his face. And—finally,  _ finally— _ he leaned down and kissed Bitty sweetly.

Kent screamed silently and did a small dance.

Jack broke away and just looked at Bitty for a second, amazement visible even from ten feet away. Bitty didn’t open his eyes, just stood there with his chin tilted up, waiting. 

Jack kissed him again, harder, and this time he didn’t let go. Kent got to watch as they learned each other’s lips, the angles and rhythms and pressure, and stuffed a fist into his mouth to keep from squeeing aloud. The kiss grew more heated, until finally Jack broke apart and went to close the door. 

At which point, of course, he noticed Kent.

“Kenny,” he said, startled. “Do you, uh. Do you want to come in?”

“Can I watch?” asked Kent breathlessly, drawing nearer so they could see him better. “Can I just watch you? If you don’t want me to, that’s fine, if you want it to be just the two of you the first time—“ But Bitty and Jack were looking at him with hunger in their eyes. They looked at each other, found agreement, and nodded. Jack pulled Kent into the room and shut the door behind him. And then he went back to kissing Bitty, as though Kent wasn’t even there, and Kent backed up until he hit the door and slid down it, palming the front of his jeans.

Bitty slid his hands up under Jack’s shirt. Jack obligingly took it off and pulled Bitty over to the bed and onto his own lap. 

Kent already knew how good it felt  _ being  _ manhandled by Jack, but  _ watching  _ it was almost as good. Now he had some idea of what Bitty had felt watching them get it on in the locker room shower. 

Jack latched onto Bitty’s neck and began to suck. Bitty gasped and tilted his head back, and Kent stroked himself. Jack broke away to take Bitty’s shirt off, but instead of going back to it, Bitty slithered off and dropped to the floor to unbutton Jack’s jeans. Jack helped him shove them down, and Bitty made a determined face and took Jack’s dick into his mouth. 

Kent debated whether to give advice, but decided he preferred the illusion that they didn’t know he was there. Besides, Jack had it covered, muttering encouragement and instructions just as though he were teaching hockey camp again. 

Really, Jack and Bitty didn’t know how much Kent was saving them from by not mentioning this comparison. 

Bitty pulled off after a while, working his jaw side to side, and Jack smiled in amusement. He stood up and shoved his pants off all the way, and Bitty took the opportunity to do the same. Jack beckoned Bitty closer and pulled him back into his lap, but this time he turned Bitty around, back to Jack’s chest, and contented himself with running his hands up and down Bitty’s body and mouthing along his neck and shoulder. 

Kent loved this treatment; it made the rest of his body sing and the pleasure was that much better when Jack finally got to his dick. Bitty, it seemed, had other preferences, and started to squirm after a minute or so. Jack’s shoulders shook with restrained laughter and he obligingly wrapped his hand around Bitty’s dick. Only a few seconds of this, though, and they paused to grab the lube from the bedside table. Upon reset, Jack managed to maneuver his dick between Bitty’s legs. Bitty obligingly knelt over his lap to accommodate, and Jack thrust against him as he jerked him off.

Kent took his hand off his dick to let it cool down. Wouldn’t do to come before the show was even close to over. With his luck, he’d be a third of the way to his second orgasm when they finished, and he’d have to go home with blue balls. Metaphorically. 

“What if we did this lying down?” Jack asked after a minute, frustration writing itself into the lines of his forehead.

“Okay,” said Bitty, panting a little, and they detangled and repositioned so they were both lying facing Kent on the bed. Jack took the opportunity to lube himself up, and this way Bitty could lock his thighs after Jack slipped between them. 

Kent and Jack didn’t do intercrural very often, especially not as the end goal, only because it was usually worth the effort to just fuck. He pressed his hand back down between his legs and wondered if maybe they should do it more often. Bitty was making little gasping moans, face screwed up into a thing of beauty, hand hooked backwards over Jack’s ass as Jack thrust into the space between his legs, and, somehow, jerked him off at the same time. 

Bitty’s moans got louder, and Jack’s hand and hips got faster, and then Bitty’s dick was twitching and dripping over the sheets, oh  _ god.  _

Kent shuffled onto his side on the carpet, spit on his left hand, and maneuvered it down the back of his own underwear to slide his middle finger inside himself while his right snaked down the front of his pants to get a better grip on his dick. He was vibrating with arousal now, hands shaking in a way that felt  _ really  _ good inside him. 

Jack had let go of Bitty’s dick to clutch his hip instead and was chasing his own release. Bitty visibly squeezed his thighs tighter, and Jack let out a surprised noise and came. 

Kent had been about to slide a second finger inside himself, but the image was too good and he came instead, squeezing his eyes shut and chasing the explosion of pleasure that started in his groin and spiraled outward, spiking up his  _ back _ . He came until he needed to gasp for air, and opened his eyes still shuddering through aftershocks. His pupils must be blown all to hell, because everything was fuzzy like he desperately needed glasses. 

“If I could get hard again…” said Bitty sleepily from where he was watching.

“I know, right?” said Jack. “He  _ can_, the fucker.”

“I  _ know. _ It is the  _ worst._”

Kent managed a smirk, even as he took in lungfuls of air.

  
  


It was the first day back from winter break, and Kent was at the rink, listening to the end of practice. 

“Bittle!” called Jack. “Heads up!”

Kent looked up from his laces and watched as Bitty dodged a defenseman, snagged the puck, and sent it speeding across the ice to Shitty, who knocked it into the goal.

“Go Bitty!” hollered Kent from the stands, even though it wasn’t really anything he hadn’t seen Bitty do in a game last semester. Neither of them gave any indication of hearing him, but when Kent was finished with his skates and some of the players leaving the ice, they were both waiting for him at the door to skate bodily into them in a three-way hug. 

“Bitty and Kent! You should have a jump-off!” That was Shitty.

“Like we don’t skate together all the time?” said Kent.

“He’s better even when I’m wearing the right skates!” said Bitty.

“You’re warm, though,” Jack pointed out. “Hockey skates versus no warm-up?”

“How much warm-up is no warm-up?”

“Two laps of the rink,” Jack decided. 

“Fine. Double Sal?”

Bitty spluttered. “If you actually think being warmed up makes that much difference for a double…” But he was already skating away, taking his own lap, launching into the jump and sticking the landing beautifully, holding the position for a few seconds before putting his other skate down and swiveling to face them, arms crossed. Kent applauded. Even with hockey skates, Bitty had gotten better over their months of skating together, and really, they weren’t so far apart in quality. 

He took his own permitted two laps of the rink and flipped around backwards. Three turn, left back inside edge, right leg up and around, jump and spin, land on right back outside edge. But there was something  _ just slightly off  _ about the takeoff, probably the fucked-up ice, but it could have been anything—and Kent overbalanced and had to slap one hand to the ice to keep from falling. He got his balance back and skated back to Jack and Bitty.

“Wooo! Kick his ass, Bitty!” yelled Shitty.

“Did you do that on purpose?” asked Bitty, sounding unsure. Which,  _ duh, no.  _ Kent could think of at least three reasons why that was a dumb question. 

“Swear to god,” he said instead of any of them, clapping a hand over his heart. 

“Very spinny,” said Jack, applauding. Kent glared at him. 

“That’s payback for every time I ever pretended not to know the rules of hockey, isn’t it?” Behind him, Shitty burst into laughter. 

“To be fair, I’ve watched you do that a hundred times and I still legitimately can’t tell all the jumps apart at full speed,” pointed out Jack. “Whereas you’re just fucking with me.” Kent conceded that with a nod. “Still gorgeous, though.” He smiled Kent’s favorite smile, and tugged him closer to kiss him. 

“What about me?” pouted Bitty. It was mostly fake, Kent knew, but he still broke away and skated over to Bitty, taking his face between both gloved hands and kissing him firmly.

“Congratulations on your technically sound Salchow,” he said, only half teasing. Jack came up behind Bitty and twirled him around for a second kiss.

“Oh,” said Bitty, sounding surprised. “Okay then.”

“As winner of the silicone jump competition, I bestow extra kisses,” Jack said with a straight face, which cracked when Bitty and Kent squawked at him in unison. “Now  _ that _ was me fucking with you.” 

He let them check him onto the ice, still laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the scene where Jack gives Kent his binder long before I found out that was a harmful stereotype, and it's bothered me ever since. So I addressed it.  
> You can see Kent's first combination spin [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KelLelFi2mQ) at 4:10 and the second one, the one he finishes the piece with, [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMV7j7NrbEs&feature=youtu.be).


End file.
